lou 💌 (they/she)

The consultation law, just like with criminological indication, is only allowed up until the 14th week of pregnancy, which is also often referred to as the 12th week after conception. Conception happens during ovulation, but pregnancy weeks start being counted at the first day of the last period you had, which is around two weeks before conception.

Following the consultation law, you have to visit a state-approved consultation centre for a "Schwangerschaftskonfliktberatung" (pregnancy conflict counseling), and afterwards you receive a counseling certificate (which you need to be able to book an appointment for an abortion). You also receive a list of doctors who do abortions in your area, as most of them aren't on publically available lists (usually so they and their patients don't get harassed by protesters). Btw, some doctors are official counselers, but the person counseling you isn't allowed to be the same person who does your abortion in the end, you have to go to someone else.

Officially, the counseling session is supposed to "serve the protection of the unborn life" and "encourage the woman to continue her pregnancy and show her perspectives of a life with her child", so you have to research your local counseling centers first, to make sure they're not hardcore pro-life and anti-choice.

However, they're not allowed to refuse to give you your counseling certificate if it will prevent you from being able to get an abortion in the prescribed period of 14 weeks.

But!! There are "counseling centers" that never give out certificates ever, because it goes against their beliefs, so again, make sure you go to a counseling center where you can get the necessary certificate and won't get shamed. I advice against all christian institutions if there are other options in your area.

After counseling there's a mandatory 3 day long "reflection period", before you're finally allowed to get an abortion. (But remember, it's still illegal! You just won't be punished for it.)

There's two methods of abortion: medicamentous and surgical.

I won't go too in-depth describing these bc I'm not a doctor and english isn't my first language, I felt unsure enough about explaining them in german, so describing them in english would be even less accurate probably. Read more about them here if you want.

Insurance pays for everything around the abortion (consultations, treatment if something goes wrong, etc) but you have to pay for the actual abortion yourself, which can cost you between 300€ and 800€, unless you qualify as needing social support.

I'm going to put some fun facts here as well:

there's two words for abortion in german, "Abtreibung" (the verb "abtreiben" can also be used to refer to something "drifting away" [like in the ocean], but usually it's only used for ending a pregnancy) and "Schwangerschaftsabbruch" (lit.: termination of pregnancy). Abtreibung is used colloquially, so it's the word most people would use when talking about it in private, but it has negative connotations as it was used to specifically describe illegal abortions in the past, so there are people who prefer to use Schwangerschaftsabbruch, which sounds more professional and polite.

Every year about 100,000 abortions are done in Germany.

For a very long time there was a law against "advertising abortions", which meant doctors weren't allowed to put on their website which methods of abortion they offered, as if reading that would encourage more people to get abortions? The law was bullshit and luckily was repealed in 2022.

Since 2024 there's a law against harassment in front of pregnancy consultation centers! In a radius of 100m around the entrance, protesters aren't allowed to block the entrance, force their opinion onto the pregnant person or otherwise harass or depress them.

I hope this all makes sense and that I didn't forget anything!! I encourage you all to do your own research, as I am just a random tumblr user with concentration issues whose first language isn't english :]

I put all of my sources in my original post in german and obviously those sources are german as well, but I tried to look for some resources in english to put here: